Synopsis: As explained to the viewer by policeman Lieutenant Chad (Spinella), the following film exists for
"no reason". As a crowd of viewers stand on a hill, watching on at
the events unfolding with binoculars, a rubber car tire (Robert) comes to life in a wasteland area. Not only does the tire
become a living and moving entity, but it also has psychokinetic powers that
allows him to cause anything it concentrates on to explode. The tire starts its
destructive tendencies running over a plastic bottle, than a scorpion, than
blowing up small animals before, after developing an obsession with a young
woman Sheila (Mesquida), turning its
attentions to human beings.

It's a gamble to start any film with
a monologue to the camera talking about films existing for "no
reason". It's a way to let this film's premise exist without complaint,
but not only can it be seen as the director-writer having his head up his own
arse, but it could be a betrayal of the premise as well, as one doesn't need to
justify a premise like this and should make the film regardless without the
monologue. But let's take the idea of "no reason" seriously for a
moment. It could be seen as a very nihilistic monologue but I can't help but
think, even if it wasn't Quentin Dupieux's
intention, of "no reason" meaning that no concrete rationale exists
for why films are made, only entirely subjective reasons existing. Because anything
can be depicted in cinema, the choices made are entirely based on the
individuals involved and their will to create it. The reason why no one uses
the bathroom in Tobe Hooper's The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974) was
done for a reason, but it was a subjective one, "no reason" baring
what was desired for the film's crew. It could be seen as tasteless to
reference JFK (1991) and The Pianist (2002) in this monologue,
the real life events having reasons in terms of a successful assassination
attempt and the Holocaust to explain them, but films based on real events,
especially those sort of films as information can be changed to be more
cinematic, have "no reason" to having been made barring a decision to
depict the event in a movie. A decision could've been made as much to make a
film about JFK surviving and changing American politics, which would have
"no reason" in being made barring the mere desire to.

From http://www.samefacts.com/wp-content/uploads
/2015/04/Screen-shot-2015-04-23-at-23.35.56.png

If the monologue is in danger of
being pretentious, there is a vague reach to Dada ideals that there is no clear
definition of cinema's meaning barring its mere creation. Dada hated the
presumed beleifs of what art was through the act of anti-art, while here the
film prods at why anyone takes things like ET being brown at face value. Even the
non-film examples like why people like sausages and some don't explains this,
"no reason" unless in rare circumstances like vegetarianism for any
decision or type of behaviour to exist barring being a subjective choice by a
person only. "No reason" is a mantra for removing pretence from any
cinematic choice and letting it exist as an unpredictable entity to be viewed
without trying to rationalise it. It means as well the notion of the subjective
is important. One of the key facets to the abstract cinema I hunt out for this
blog is that they question grounded ideals of what exists in storytelling and
how cinema is actually made, what the images and sound (or lack of them) do to
effect a viewer. The "No reason" argument could be typed out and
placed underneath the blog's title because it perfectly encapsulates how cinema
can (and should) distort one's perceptions of reality. The thing that doesn't
make any sense, and encapsulates the point of the monologue, is that Lieutenant
Chad is giving the speech, having gotten out from the boot of a police car
beforehand, while holding a glass of water and doesn't drink any of it,
spilling it on the ground on purpose. A waste of a nice cold drink in a hot
desert, also a subtle moment of absurdity which "No reason" is
demonstrated through.

Breathing life into a tire, Rubber manages to bring a personality
to an inanimate object as well and make it one of the most intriguing villains to
appear in cinema, brought to life with practical effects and framing that
manages to bring a reality to the creation. It starts the film falling
repeatedly like a child learning to walk to his more unconventional behaviour
being fleshed out, especially his obsession with television, a strange joke in
his fascinating with human beings but causing many to implode on a whim.
There's an innate surrealism to a tire being seen on an arm chair while
watching NASCAR on television, his cousins on the wheels of the cars onscreen,
and the narrative plays with such moments continually, the interactions with
the tire and the actors far from embarrassing for the performers before Robert is actually a talented actor
through utterly clever production skills. No matter how absurd the image is,
the tire is depicted with such skill in how it was made to move and interact
with its environment that when a scene comes of it rolling down a highway being
followed by a police car, there is a weight of conflict there despite one of
the participants being a Goodyear
tire.

The audience within the film viewing
the events is less interesting as a meta comment or Greek chorus as the film
goes on but become as much part of the onion layers of this film's world
instead. The concept itself is more stranger than you'd normally presume, such
a trope not that rare now, because of how it effects temporality and perception
greatly, us the viewer watching an audience watching the events through
including them. The meta references, such as someone being caught pirating the
events on a digital camera or wheelchair bound Wings Hauser criticising the policemen for taking too long to blow
up the tire, are very obvious and instead feels more rewarding if viewed in the
same light as a Monty Python sketch. Here
the fourth wall breaking becomes less a comment of the various forms of reality
but a more subversive form of it through making everything prey for a joke at
their expense, even the distance between us and the actors on the screen made as
ridiculous. That the audience is part of a peculiar conspiracy that's part of
the narrative is far more interesting, a conspiracy that ends up bringing a
further layer of distorting to the world's reality because Hauser refuses to eat or sleep, more interested in watching the
live action film (sic) playing out.

What helps is that Dupieux has a clear sense of humour, the
right sensibility of having sincere thoughts alongside the sillier content,
making them fit together seamlessly. A short interview with him he directed
himself about Rubber's origins is
proof of this - what he talks about is entirely real comments, but he happens
to be speaking like the backward talking midget in Twin Peaks and the voice of the interviewer is being layered over a
male blow-up sex doll in a director's chair. He avoids making such humour in
the film itself too broad, instead intercut with scenes of quietness or the
ordinary being subjected to the scenario. There's is a sereneness to an image
of a tire dropping itself into a swimming pool, languishing in the bottom as
one would find in a shot of an actor doing the same, as much of interest for Dupieux toenvision the idea through a form of fleshed out existence as well
as revelling in the countless head explosions that take place too.

From http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SFqnLrLWY5U/Tc4Qdw8h7pI/AAAAAAAAI2I/
0HzvVTyeePo/s400/rubber2010brripxvidac3t.jpg

Technical Detail:

Short on digital, a huge virtue
for the cult electronic musician turned director is that he's got an eye for
beautiful cinematography and, as his own cinematographer too, he made the
clever decision of setting his strange premise in the realistic setting of Americana.
Vast tracks of desert surround the gas stations and rundown diners, and for all
the absurdity of Spinella's
performance as the police lieutenant who knows he's an actor for the audience
within the film, everyone else is playing their roles seriously as ordinary
folk who've ended up in an absurd scenario, one where a car tire can cause
peoples' heads to explode like in Scanners
(1981). I've actively despised how the term "surreal" has been
taken over to represent something that's a surface, novelty weirdness, or a
film like Final Flesh (2009) which forgets
a vital part of surrealism of grounded reality and the irrational co-existing
in the same scenario. While it doesn't take itself seriously, Rubber is still a sincerely made
b-movie with artistic sensibilities, executing the premise of a killer car tire
to the best of its abilities. The
digital camera, when used right, is as useful a tool as celluloid especially
as, with beautiful flashes of sun rays hitting the screen, the grounded reality
makes the events of the film more potent in their strangeness than if a wacky
aesthetic had won out. As the director was successful before his filmmaking
career as musician Mr. Oizo, his co
score with Gaspard Augé is suitably
atmospheric, dance music which still fits the tone of the scenario.

From https://i.ytimg.com/vi/XWWufhqyGE8/maxresdefault.jpg

Abstract Spectrum: Psychotronic/Surreal

Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): Medium

The film is a b-movie premise but
made with sincerity and purpose, rather than with irony and little to build upon.
The meta-content could be seen as the sole weakness as it feels like an unnecessary
defence to the film, but Rubber despite
this is a prime example of how you can make an unconventional genre film which
stands out as a one-off. As the audience within the film are whittled down to
just Wings Hauser, the film escalates
to a stranger tone, multiple layers of reality at play that boggles
conventions. Unlike another film, Rubber
can get away with an abrupt and random joke occasionally at this point because
it keeps a consistent tone which develops this escalation further. Sometimes it's
better to not need an intellectual reason behind events in a film, instead the
complete unpredictability of the content and even how the structure changes the
real abstract aspect of the movie itself. A joke about a stuffed toy abruptly
appearing becomes a jolt, one never mentioned again, that stands out in a scene
that's already great because the director-writer manages to create reality that
accepts these "no reason" moments. That it only takes a tire to begin
is fitting. One artist in the past had found just implementing two baguettes as
shoes perfectly encapsulated a surreal idea, and that the film almost suggests
a parody of the Planet of the Apes
films throughout its very short running time adds to this notion in an
incredibly funny way that also evokes a serious ecological message
out-of-the-blue too.

From http://img5.imageshack.us/img5/2811/18464126.jpg

Personal Opinion:

Rubber was such a pleasant revisit, a cult film which can
legitimately get on the Abstract List
because the tone and content is suitably out there in context. The strength of
this has enforced as well a reason why I love this type of cinema, Rubber starting off with a basic
premise and semblance of a plot but using them as links to connect the more
important aspects, the results and their effect on the viewer. This could've
been an awful film, legitimately pretentious, if it was bogged down by an
overcomplicated narrative or too much dialogue, instead depicting the absurd
premise through the visual content and choice use of lines from the actor that
add to the surrealism instead. Even here you can learn that you get a better
film if narrative is pushed aside in favour of the bare bones of a narrative
being used to lead to the effects created by it.

Compare this to a film like Tokyo Gore Police (2008) - Reviewed Here - which had a lot of plotting which went nowhere and undermined what good
it had through poor cinematic content, until finally drowning itself in a lack
of clarity and lack of an actual finale act. A film like Rubber in comparison is not only an excellent example of surrealism
in genre cinema, but is a good modern day cult film. I also found the film
utterly hilarious and inventive, culminating in a delightfully great climax
where Los Angeles with the Hollywood sign in the skyline is the final shot. You'd
want to see a sequel but it was probably for the better that Quentin Dupieux left it to this ending
only and made other films instead.

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"I could go on for hours with more examples. The list is endless. You probably never gave it a thought, but all great films, without exception, contain an important element of no reason. And you know why? Because life itself is filled with no reason." - Rubber (2010)

About Me

I am 28 years old and hail from England. For the last few years I have been a growing fan of cinema and have decided to take the next step into blogging about it and any other tangents that about the things I'm interested in I get onto.